Georgia State At A Glance

Georgia State on College Portraits

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About Georgia State University

An Enterprising Urban Research University

Georgia State University, an enterprising urban public research university, is a national leader in graduating students from widely diverse backgrounds.

Centered in the historic financial hub of downtown Atlanta, the university provides more than 32,000 students with unsurpassed connections to the city’s business, government, nonprofit and cultural organizations.

Focus on Student Success

Georgia State is among the most diverse universities in the nation. It has a university-wide commitment to student advising with a keen focus on students’ progress to graduation.

The university has cultivated the ability to detect early when students face obstacles affecting their studies. As a result, Georgia State has achieved national acclaim as a leader in creating innovative approaches that get students back on track and successfully headed to graduation.

Georgia State has more than 180,000 alumni across the state and around the world. The careers and lives of these graduates were shaped by a distinctively enterprising university culture that values ambition, hard work, dedication and perseverance.

The Atlanta Advantage

Atlanta is home to more than a dozen headquarters of Fortune 500 companies, and ranks third in America and fourth in the world for Fortune 500 headquarters. This business mecca provides students with unparalleled access to internships and jobs, as well as a wide variety of networking opportunities.

Georgia State students also can take advantage of the university’s easy access to Atlanta’s rich creative environment, diversity of cultures and lifestyles, and wide variety of indoor and outdoor activities. The Atlanta streetcar will soon travel through Georgia State’s campus, bringing more visitor traffic and offering students and other university members a new means of getting around Atlanta.

The world’s busiest airport is just minutes from campus. Atlanta provides Georgia State’s faculty and students with an urban laboratory, enabling them to draw creative inspiration and address critical societal issues locally and in cities around the world.

Impact on Atlanta

The synergy between Georgia State and Atlanta benefits area residents and visitors.

The university is central to the revitalization of downtown Atlanta. Georgia State’s growth and future plans, including the expansion of student housing and amenities, and a new law school building, are providing the impetus for private developers to invest in the area.

Georgia State also plays a major role in advancing the socioeconomic and cultural climate, education, health care services and other resources available throughout the city, as well as in communities across Georgia and beyond.

Many of the policies, regulations and laws that underpin the safety, health, and economic and social well-being of citizens in Atlanta and across the state reflect the university’s research, economic, analytical and evaluative capabilities.

Pioneering Research with Global Connections

The university is expanding its research portfolio, in part by implementing a five–year hiring initiative to build scholarly strength around interdisciplinary research themes.

The university’s strategic plan also calls for leveraging the research and outcomes achieved from faculty in their Atlanta “urban lab” setting to help address opportunities and issues facing cities around the globe.

Georgia State’s global connections are growing, with five faculty task forces seeking to collaborate with universities in emerging markets in China, Korea, Turkey, Brazil and South Africa. Study Abroad program participation is up 25 percent from 2008, with the number of students projected to nearly double by 2015 as scholarship funding grows. The university also seeks to expand its geographic diversity by increasing the number of international students who attend Georgia State in the coming years.